Oaksterdam University founder Rich Lee is emerging as the primary
agent of change amid a crowded field of four statewide cannabis-reform
efforts. But the seasoned entrepreneur’s hope to end prohibition with
licensing, regulation, and taxation is being challenged by activists
who were once on the same team as him.
Back in June, Lee and other reformers were working with San
Francisco attorney Omar Figueroa and Sonoma public defender Joe Rogoway
on a legalization bill to take directly to the voters in the 2010
election. But the group split into pragmatists and idealists over the
details of the initiative. While Lee and his camp finished the
“Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010,” which limits personal
possession of cannabis to an ounce, Figueroa filed “The Tax, Regulate,
and Control Cannabis Act of 2010” in Sacramento with no limits on
possession. Now the two wildly different efforts will have fewer than
150 days to gather 430,000 valid signatures, thereby qualifying them
for the 2010 ballot.
Meanwhile, a third marijuana-reform initiative just emerged from
Long Beach. And when combined with the legalization effort introduced
by freshman Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, the potential for
confusion becomes evident.
Lee said he was surprised that his former allies chose such a
similar name for their initiative. Nonetheless, he intends to quickly
finish signature-gathering, while Figueroa and Rogoway must still
muster resources. “Frankly, I give Joe credit for urging me to start
this and do the first poll and look into doing it,” he said. “We
haven’t talked much lately. It’s been a little disappointing.”
Lee said his group will pay the professional signature-gatherering
firm Masterton and Wright around $1 million to quickly secure more than
650,000 signatures — 50 percent more than the legally required
number. He hopes volunteers will contribute a small fraction to the
total. He’s not counting on the grassroots, but he hopes they will
contribute 10 to 20 percent of the signatures he wants. “We’re going to
get ours done pretty quickly, so there won’t be much confusion,” Lee
said. He expects to need another $10 to $20 million for a ground and
air campaign next year to capture the 56 percent of California voters
who told the Field Poll this summer that they favor legalization.
Figueroa and Rogoway did not return phone calls, but their group,
the California Cannabis Initiative, is appealing online for lawyers,
signature-gathering coordinators, and petition circulators. Their web
site states they have only a handful of the dozens who will be
needed.
By contrast, the third runner up, the Common Sense Act of 2010, was
filed by one retired veteran in Long Beach with a spare $200 to pay the
filing fee. He now needs signatures as well.
The only true peer of Lee’s effort may be Ammiano’s AB 390, a bill
that will be heard in two committees this fall. Ammiano said the bill
should be viable in the Democrat-controlled state legislature.
“Consider that California passed single-payer health care through the
legislature, and it’s just sitting on the governor’s table.”
Among the initiatives, Ammiano said Lee’s is the one to watch. “I
like Richard Lee,” he said. “I think he’s a really smart guy. We’ll see
how this all shakes down over the upcoming deadlines and who in a sense
is the last man standing. Richard has the funding to carry this over.”
Still, Ammiano and others believe voter confusion could be a problem.
He said he was chagrined when he heard of all the competing
initiatives. Message control is essential to any successful campaign,
he believes. “I think it’s something we have to work on,” he says.
“This community is not monolithic.”
But Lee maintains that all the reform attempts help reinforce the
cause. In the 20th Century, seventy-three initiative measures related
to prohibition, drugs, and alcohol circulated. Only twenty qualified
for the ballot box and just five were approved.
James Wheaton, the Oakland lawyer who authored Lee’s initiative,
says it all comes down to money. “The real question is, do they have $1
million to get this thing on the ballot?”
Although Lee may indeed have the resources, many in the reform
movement would have preferred a 2012 initiave to capture younger,
presidential election voters, noted Stephen Gutwillig, state policy
director for the Drug Policy Alliance. Those voters will stay on the
sidelines until next year, when a final ballot determination is
made.
Political analyst and Oakland resident Larry Tramutola said he has
high hopes for the Lee initiative. “Lee is savvy and methodical, but
it’s already confusing and that is a risk.”
San Francisco medical cannabis dispensary operator Kevin Reed fears
the worst and wants reformers to move slower and more methodically.
“This is a huge social experiment, and when they overreach, it
threatens to alienate a bunch of voters,” Reed said. “Failure could
blow up in the face of the medical marijuana community.”
The opinion was echoed by James Anthony, lawyer for large Oakland
dispensary Harborside Health Center. Anthony blasted Lee online this
week, noting that notorious criminal Philip Garrido was a pot smoker
and child rapist. A massive, Republican fundamentalist backlash will
use the case and others to stomp legal pot at the polls, he fears.
The deadline for signature gathering for the first of the three
initiatives begins shortly, and the topic will be hotly debated at the
Sept. 27 annual NORML conference in San Francisco.
